JRE MMA Show #48 with Henry Cejudo & Eric Albarracin

00:03Three. Boom, and we're live. Henry Cejudo. World champ. And sir, introduce yourself to everybody. Captain America. That's right. Captain Eric Albarracin. Uh Henry's coach. You uh what what what do you do with him specifically? Well, I've been with him since 2004 and recently became his coach right before the first Demetrious Johnson fight and I'm his head coach for MMA. And you're in disguise in case some other athletes try to swipe you. And it's Halloween. Happy Halloween, everybody. Happy Halloween, folks. So, uh first of all, man, congratulations on your victory. Um it What does it feel like? Oh, man, it's it it feels good. It feels good. Try to keep this little guy fist away from your face. Yeah, uh it feels good because it's um God, it's I I think as a competitor, you you live for these moments. You live for you live for these fulfillments, you know. Yeah. I think

01:00somebody like And then I told people since the beginning it wasn't so much you know, the UFC belt, but it was because it was I made it about Demetrious and it was about Demetrious, you know, cuz Well, I mean, he is widely considered to be the best pound-for-pound fighter ever, and you're the first guy not only to beat him, but the first guy who not just to beat him, but I mean, beat him in like 11 years, but the first guy to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling and a UFC championship. I mean, those are two gigantic accomplishments. Yeah, no, for sure. It's almost like God, it's it's I beat the greatest of to me the greatest of all time, and then on top of that, I be you know, I I can I can make the run for, you know, who's the greatest combat athlete of all time. Yeah. Like it's I'm a two-sport world champion. I'm just like, damn, that's crazy. absolutely in the running now. I mean,

01:49if if he's not the greatest of all time, I think he is, but the argument is that he didn't face people as good as Jon Jones faced. And then Fedor is the other Fedor and Anderson Silva are the other people that are in consideration for the greatest of all time. I mean it's it's just a subjective argument. I mean who who knows who's right? But obviously you beat without a doubt one of the best ever. Yeah, yeah. And and like I would I would tell people there's there's a bit of uh of admiration that I had for Demetrious Johnson. Like I was uh It was it was like, you know, you're fighting a dude that's that's that that almost seems untouchable that you a guy that makes you question yourself. Like, "Whoa, this is this is this this guy is that good." What was crazy is you beat him after he had stopped you. Just how much how long was it 2 years? Uh about uh close to about 2 and 1/2

02:42years ago now. Yeah, about I I was like I I think 2 years and like 4 months. That's that's an amazing turnaround between getting stopped in the first round and then coming back and and beating him and then beating him in the championship rounds is really where you pulled it off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I and and I absolutely I I had studied Demetrious Johnson. Like I seen as I lost to him the first time what I pretty much did is I got I got rid of a lot of people including my my MMA head coach. I just my whole philosophy was if I can't be the best then there's something wrong. You know, emotionally, physically, everything I was just invested. Mhm. And when I lost I'm just like, "Man, I I I I need a I I'm looking for a better leader." You know, and and that's kind of what I did. I ended up, you know, letting go a lot of my cornermen. And I started traveling the world.

03:31Went out to Singapore, went out to uh to Thailand, went out to uh to the Netherlands, spent months and months at a time out in Brazil. Like I I was on a quest. It was like the I kind of remind myself a little like Ash Ketchum from Pokémon. Like I was just on adventure, dude. I was like idea who that is, but Vision Quest. Vision Quest. a yeah. The Matthew Modine movie. Every wrestler, every wrestler has to watch that movie. And that's and and and and and it be like I said it became an obsession. I I knew that if anybody could do it it'd be it'd be Henry Cejudo. Like I really did. And even after the first time Joe when he beat me I still when they asked me it's like Henry you know like I would I would like guys I don't know but I still know that I could beat him. Even being knocked out like 2 minutes and 36 seconds. Like I still knew in my heart and you will see

04:21what I said at the press conference says I know I'm still the one to beat him. What was it about him that made you think that you could beat him? What was it about you specifically in relation to him and his skill set? It was um I I I if if if you ask me what the difference was what was it that made you think even after he stopped you in the first round? Oh God I think it was more so just believing in my in my abilities. I think me just believing more okay Henry you need time. Like I was only doing MMA for 3 years when I fought him the first time. Yeah, a lot of people don't know that. They assume you see you fighting for the title not once but twice that you've probably been doing MMA for a long ass time. But when you fought him for the first time it's a very that's a very short amount of time to be fighting in MMA. Especially against a caliber athlete like Demetrious.

05:12What year did you win uh the Olympics? In '08. Yeah, see that is I mean when you're doing that you're 100% dedicated to wrestling. You have to be, right? So were you doing any striking training at all back then? Um I did I did. What what happened was once I won the Olympics I almost kind of I fell out of love with the sport. I fell I fell out of love with wrestling. I remember being at the Olympics and being like man I just I don't I don't know if I have it in me no more. Just cuz you're burnt out? I was yeah. My whole childhood was gone because of the sport, you know? Take that crazy mask off, brother. What are you doing? Wait, wait. I've been waiting for you to say that. How was that? We'll do it in stages. So, you you you fell out of love with it. I fell out of love with it. it just But is it just because your whole life had been dedicated to wrestling and you'd finally achieved the

06:08greatest of great goals? Yeah. Olympic gold medalist is the top of the mountain. No, but check this out, Joe. And it was like in in in the year of 2007, um man, I went through the worst year ever. Like I was ready to become a world champion and I went out to the world championships in 2007 and I didn't even score a point. Like in the first round, like I got put out by by Iran. And uh for some reason that whole year, man, I was just going through freaking struggles like left and right. You're talking about just adversity. I couldn't win a tournament to save my life. What was it? Um I don't know. I don't know. I I I I truly truly don't know. I think I was uh I think I probably begin kind of falling out of love with it. And I remember there was to me there was only two tournaments that I really wanted to win and that was that was the Olympic trials and eventually the Olympic Games and

06:57and somehow like cuz I'm correlating this with the with the fight with Demetrious Johnson. And uh I remember, you know, just just almost being in in tears like I just don't know if if this is for me. And the but I just stuck with it. I stuck with it. I ended up winning the Olympic trials. I ended up going to the, you know, the Olympic Games. I ended up pretty much falling behind in every single match uh that I was wrestling in. So, they these are kind of the adversities that I was going through like leading up to becoming an Olympic champion. You know, what's interesting when you were fighting um Demetrious for the second time, Daniel Cormier said said something very interesting. He said, "Most guys," he goes, "I would never give a chance. You you get stopped by DJ and then a couple years later you're fighting him again. Like he's he's going to have your number. He's

07:43going to be better in the rematch. And he goes, "But Henry Cejudo is a different kind of athlete." He And he talked about you competing and then coming back a year later and and being He goes he was many times better. He goes the the amount of improvement that he got in just 1 year was just unbelievable. Yeah, and I think you know, I guess you can owe that to genetics. Not I think you can talk a lot about desire too. Just to having the the desire Genetics only get you so far. And everybody at the Olympics has has great genetics. For sure, but it's almost it almost becomes a a mentality and becomes a a philosophy. It's like you almost start doing things almost like to to not feel the to not to not feel the the pain of losing. Mhm. Like that's a motivator. To not feel the pain of losing. And I remember when Demetrious Johnson hit me hit me in the hit me in the leg and I literally I I

08:36don't think people knew how severe it was. Like I literally sprained like a severe low ankle sprain. It was for the first 30 seconds. In the second fight. Yeah. So I fought Demetrious Johnson like that. But it was it was to me the motivator was like, "Man, I don't want to feel that pain of losing no more." Mhm. I hate it, man. I hate feeling second place. I hate feeling kind of kind of somebody is looking over me. Someone's almost like a manhood challenge. And I hate that. Was it a low leg kick? That that that made your your ankle go? Like what was it? Yeah, it was there's a nerve that you have behind like the bone. It's a I think it's the peroneal peroneal Peroneal nerve. p e r Yeah. And I got hit there. So it put my foot to sleep. Just like when Michael Chandler happened to him in Bellator. Same thing. Exactly. You're stepping on it and it's just not working. And the and the

09:27and the reason the reason why everybody kind of got scared I mean cuz I I was hurt. But I remember before the fight I remember I remember I saw my cornermen like kind of before I fought Demetrious I remember I saw him all uh I saw him all nervous. And I remember I remember grabbing my corner man and putting him in right in front of me. I remember telling him like, "Hey guys, I've been here before. Like I was ranked 31st in the world. I'd be I I know I I became a world champion in wrestling. Like guys like Yeah, I want you guys to have a little faith in me, do you? But I'm going to ask you guys one thing and and I'm I'm going to ask you guys I'm going to ask you guys to be composed. I said the key to winning this fight is for me to be composed. And then pretty much there's 6 hours later they right before you know we walk out they start playing my song. I look back at my corner

10:13and I said uh and I said, "Guys, I said the key to this fight, remember, is going to be composure." So when Demetrious Johnson kicked me, like I I believe in my own philosophy. I went back to all right, my composure. Cuz I was hurt, Joe. Like he could have stopped me that that uh first round. I was forced to switch south southpaw, which I never fight in southpaw. You know, so now I'm kind of uh uh Uh we're me and Demetrious Johnson are playing poker. My whole philosophy and the key to this victory was the composure part. And uh when he hit me, I I really did I was like, "Oh my god, dude, not again, dude, not again. I'm not going to last 2 minutes and 36 seconds, not again." But it again the motivator was not to feel the pain to lose again. Right. Like it wasn't the desire to win. I was like, "I just don't want to feel that pain anymore." As a competitor, as somebody that that

11:02that that's on a mission to do that sacrifice his life. Explain to someone who's never experienced that before. What is that pain like? Like you train for how many weeks and then you fight Mighty Mouse for the title, you get stopped in the first round. What is that pain like? Oh man, it's I think every fighter has a spirit. Like what is a spirit? The spirit is your the spirit is your dream. The spirit is that that you know you've watched somebody become a world champion. You want to be hey, I want to be just like that guy. Your confidence, your self-esteem. That's the that's your spirit and that's you also We also have a spirit of a warrior. That's like the the manhood side of it. And what happens when I got stopped with Demetrious Johnson, I almost felt like and I've never gone through this, not even in wrestling in my life, like I was like my spirit was shot.

11:47And I had to kind of pick up my pieces to kind of start healing myself like mentally. And I feel like it and if you and if you look at it, Joe, somebody like Roy Jones Jr., he got knocked out one time and it became a domino effect. Yeah. Because he never he never picked up those pieces. He never started healing that spirit. Well, he got knocked out again real bad right afterwards by Glenn Johnson, too. Remember there was two two knockouts in a row. Tarver? Yeah, Tarver KO'd him. And then right and and but the thing is there's a lot of factors involved in that loss because I think Roy was also coming off of the John Ruiz fight where he gained a lot of weight to get up to heavyweight and then he had to lose that weight to get down to light heavyweight again. So, he was lean at heavyweight and then all of a sudden he's dropping down to 175 lbs again. And he just

12:35looked like He looked smooth. It looked like his body was all sucked in and I just think it was a bad bad weight cut and, you know, and I think whatever he took to get himself up to 200 lbs, too, was probably out of his system and now his body was, you know, his hormones were probably all up. He just wasn't the same guy. I mean, let's let's be real, right? The weight cut's important. just grow to 200 lbs without some Mexican supplements. Yeah. This like You know what I'm saying? I mean, it'll take a long time for 168 lb fighter to get up to 200 lbs. It takes a long time. If you want to really get up to 200 lbs, like an actual 200 lb body, not just like fill yourself up with water and fat. No, to to actually be 200 lbs the way he was, you your body's got to your body's got to say, "Hey, man, we need to grow. We got resources that need to be allocated

13:30towards muscle. We got to we got to gain all this weight because we're we're lifting weights all the time. We're doing things. You have to do something to get your body that heavy." So, then then all of a sudden they shut that off and say, "All right, now we're getting down to 175." And you got to do it in a few months. I think his body was just wrecked. Yeah. Yeah. Boxers don't always cut weight the right way, either. Neither do MMA fighters. Particularly back in the day. This which is really interesting about the approach that you guys took to this camp that you wanted to talk about which is a very, very scientific approach towards your recovery, towards your training methods, towards everything. I mean, you you really had it dialed in as opposed to just trying to wing it which for many, many years was how almost every fighter did it. Yeah. And and and

14:13and I think it's uh Oh, we got a video. Look at this. I found that part we got kicked. You can see his leg. Okay. Yeah. That's That's uh Yeah. Look, I'm Look, look, I'm I'm still Oh, it was right there. Just the back of the leg like that? Yeah. That is so crazy. Just one shin to the back of your leg. still flopping. I'm still flopping. Yeah. So, I'm going back to that philosophy composure. Look, I'm still flopping. doesn't seem like he understands what's happened to you yet. Yeah. You know, you you you played poker so well. Really interesting. Yeah. Look, I'm still oh, that was horrible. as soon as that happened, I did remember the Michael Chandler fight and I remember he went on a show and said exactly what happened. Mhm. So, I told uh our other corner, Santino Defranco, when we get in, put ice on his knee, not his ankle because it was the knee where it

15:04happened cuz I watched that show. And I remember watching it for that reason to wonder why what happened to him. It's crazy when you watch it because it's just the foot hit the back of your knee. Yeah. You know? Yeah. You could see it again. I mean, it wasn't even the hardest kick in the world. He kind of caught you at the very end with his foot and immediately that nerve just went boing yoing yoing yoing Right here. Swap. Right right there. Right. Barely clipped barely flicked it. That is just like You know who it also happened to was Scott Jorgensen. Did it? What fight was that? Man, you know what? I can't remember but he he didn't win the fight. I can tell you that. Yeah, anyways it was a terrible feeling terrible terrible feeling. Wow, you poker face your way through it. But but again Joe, like it goes back to philosophy like you got to believe in your you got you got to be up

15:53here there has to be a philosophy up here. Against a guy like Demetrious like there's the it's it's beyond the physical and the the technical stuff. Yeah. Like you got to be you got to be just kind of hypnotized up here. But you have to have everything, right? You have to have the physical skills but you also have to have this unstoppable mindset. Yeah. Now, what do you what kind of mind training do you do? Do you do you do any visualization training or do you work with a sports psychologist? Um you know what? I I like I like reading up on a lot of people's stories. I think people's stories are the ones that that intrigue me. You know how you know how Michael Jordan rose to the top or athletes like that. I think I think that's the stuff that I got like a human interest that's kind of my motivation. Like reading biographies? Yeah, reading biographies or watching

16:42watching stuff on YouTube like you know watching like even watching even watching other sports like I'll I'll watch Michael Johnson's at at times. You know watching him win the 96 Olympics. Like things like that and and and watching people celebrations and and trying to embrace the feeling of of what they're feeling, you know, cuz it becomes like an addiction like a drug. Like going through these feelings of like dude, I I accomplished what I what I what I set out to do. Right. So you like seeing them accomplish these fantastic goals and visualizing yourself experiencing that exact same thing. Yeah. Yeah, As corny as that sounds, yeah. Doesn't sound corny at all, especially not coming from the champ. You know, once you're the champ, all that corny shit's out the window. Obviously, it works. People start believing it. All of a sudden, I became a 10. Yeah, they believe the out of it. Now,

17:31they're talking about you possibly fighting T.J. Dillashaw for the bantamweight title. Uh yeah. Yeah, that's the talk. There's talk. You know, you just hesitated and you're like, Is there negotiations? There's beef behind that. It's not just talk. He wants it. We want it. Yeah. No, I'm sure. Um where's that at right now? Because there's a There's going to be a card in January out here. It's just announced. Oh, what When did What What day was that? It's the same night as the Fedor Ryan Bader fight, which pisses me off cuz I wanted to go see that fight. Yeah. January 26th. Yeah, that fight's going to be at the Forum and the uh UFC fight, I think, is at the Staples Center. Or maybe Anaheim. Anaheim? Anaheim. Anaheim in the pond. Oh, okay. Both here. Both here in California. Well, there's 20 million in California. Plenty of people to go around in terms of audience. Yeah, we've

18:28we've I think there's been talks, but it's been you know, you know, uh we I don't think Ali, my manager, has really truly like actually sat down and talked with the UFC. I I I think I think everybody wants to do it, though. Well, it's one of two things that's going to happen there, right? It's either um I mean, now the DJ has gone to One. Um Demetrious Johnson just left the UFC and went over to One FC in a One FC, for people who have no idea what we're talking about, is a gigantic organization in Asia. They are literally the equivalent to the UFC in Asia. And although many people in America are not aware of them, they don't know who they are, they're a huge organization overseas. Absolutely gigantic, and they do a fantastic job. They have real high-level fighters. Uh Ben Askren was their champion. He's undefeated over there and he had I I think at least one

19:17fight, maybe two fights left in his contract. I forget how many. And they made a deal. And the deal was they take Mighty Mouse and we get Ben Askren. And so that's where it's at right now. I love the deal. I love it. I love the idea of it. I mean, um I feel like Mighty Mouse, you know, he um he loves the idea of starting new in a new organization. And you know, they're going to pay that Pay. Nice. All these flyweights need to get paid. Exactly. And he also likes the mentality that that organization is operated with, which is um respect for the martial arts. They're not into this you know, what we saw with the Conor McGregor Khabib Nurmagomedov fight, all the trash talking and all the all the stuff that you're seeing that was becoming more and more prevalent in the UFC. You uh you don't see that at all at ONE FC. And that's something that uh Mighty Mouse is very happy about.

20:15Yeah, I think first I think congratulations to the Ben Askren. I think he's uh Everybody's in trouble. Yeah. A lot of are in trouble when Ben Askren gets a hold of you. You're like, "Why can't I get up?" Yeah, Ben Ben Askren's one of those guys that he's very uh he's a very confident he's a very dangerous human being because he knows that he's going to be very confident about it. And I'm I've always told people I says, "Hey, dude, the maybe the best in the world is on the UFC, man. There's there's some dude by the name of Ben Askren We've been saying his praises for years. that will take people think Khabib's uh control's good up top. You wait till you get a, you know, four-time NCAA finalist, two-time NCAA champ on top of you. And the 2008 Olympian is teammate. Yeah, and and Olympian. I mean, the dude is the dude is he's a bad matchup for anybody, Joe. Anybody. No, Ben Askren

21:08and I mean there's a reason why he's undefeated and he hasn't been hit in several fights. He was detailing one of the last time he got hit. You know, I had him on the podcast cuz I I wanted to let people know about him. I mean, I've been a big fan of fan of Ben Askren's from back when he was a Bellator champion. And if you watch his fights in Bellator against Koreshkov and Yeah. and Lima. Lima's a beast, man, and he just dominated him. Just control I mean, Lima people up, man. Lima's a dangerous dangerous cat and Ben Askren just whoop Oh, you're on your back again. Look at that. You can't get up and you taking punches. You know, and he's uh it's a just a different caliber of wrestling. And I've said it many many times and I I'm sure you believe it as well, it's the most important skill for MMA is wrestling. It's it dictates where the fight takes place. If you want to stand

21:59up, you you the guy can't take you down Chuck Liddell style. And if you want to go to the ground, you're the one who gets to dictate where the fight takes place. That's to if you're the superior wrestler, I mean, it's the the best base for MMA. I really believe that. And especially a guy like Ben cuz I think Ben knows that his his striking's not that good. Right. So, he just relies on this is this is what I know. I do it better than anybody and I'm going to control you this is and and you're going to know how I'm going to do it. You know, so that's what that's what makes Ben Askren dangerous. He's so dangerous. I mean, a a real bad fight for him would be someone that can figure out how to keep it standing. Like Jay Hieron gave him a real tough fight in Bellator cuz Jay Hieron is a good wrestler and kept the fight standing. Um yeah, I forget what it what his take on

22:44that fight was. We talked about it on the podcast, but I don't think he was too happy with his training for that fight. But, you know, someone like Tyron Woodley who's also a very good wrestler who's a very dangerous striker would be a tough match up for him, but they're really close friends and training partners. Yeah, well, this is another thing, too, on on the flip side is like Tyron's been wrestling him since for years, I think. Mhm. So, he knows what the Ben Askren experience is, you know, and that's scary. Yeah. people would be lucky to you know, kind of take him down. If he really want to give it a no take-downs, he wouldn't he just wouldn't let people take him down. Yeah, Pettis was talking about it, you know, he's saying, "Listen, it was back when Pettis was the champ." He said, "If I was forced to fight Ben Askren." He goes, "It would be a terrible fight for me." He's

23:30like, "That guy just take me down and beat the out of me." Yeah. He's like, "That's what he does." If Ben was to win a belt, the 2008 Olympic team would have five belts. Henry got two, DC has two, and and Ben Askren would have one. That's five UFC belts if if he came into the UFC and won a belt. His teammates Well, they are going to open up eventually that 165-lb division, which is what Ben is shooting for. Ben would like that division, um you know, and if he said that if, you know, he had 165 and Tyron kept the welterweight title, that would be great for him. I just don't see the UFC doing a 5-lb weight difference when all the other weight differences are so huge. I feel like the smart move would be 10 lbs every every spot. 35, 45, 55, 65, 75. Like, move 70 to 75. Like, when the UFC had a light heavyweight division initially, that the division was a

24:22200-lb division. When Tito Ortiz first won it, I believe it was 200-lb division. And then they raised it up to 205. And I think just and they needed a 195, too, I really believe, and a probably a 225. You know, I think that would that would round it all out, which probably will all happen eventually. Yeah, yeah, it's it's interesting to see how that how that unfolds, but as of now, it's man, Askren He's a beast. Askren's going to be fighting for the belt pretty soon. Well, he's calling out Darren Till. He wants to fight Darren Till. Which I love. I love that fight. That is that is a classic striker versus grappler match up, especially after Tyron just smashed him. I mean Tyron end the hype train for Darren Till. We we learned a lot about Darren. Darren is a sensational striker, very very dangerous striker, but keeps his hands low, keeps his chin up high, and you know, Tyron

25:16has proven himself to be really dangerous even against elite strikers. You know, you look at the Wonderboy fights. I've said this time and time again. You look at those two fights. Wonderboy is known as being one of the best strikers to ever compete in the UFC. He's got a great I think he was 57 and 0 as a kickboxer something spectacular like that. Amazing striking skills, but yet Tyron hurt him in both fights. Both fights Tyron was the one who landed big shots and had Wonderboy badly hurt. And then you look at the the same thing with Darren Till. Darren Till is known as being this unbelievable striker. Tyron clips him, drops him, and then strangles him. So, you know, It it it it all changes with MMA. These guys can be These guys can be the best even the best wrestlers. Like sometimes it it doesn't translate to the sport. Like it takes a special somebody to adapt to the sport of MMA,

26:07not just a wrestler. Yep. And I think Tyron has has adapted to his time and to his right hand. Uh you know, man if you're able to take out two strikers like that, man you're the real deal. He's unquestionably the real deal. I'm fascinated to see whether or not Nurmagomedov and Ben Askren go at it. Yeah. That to me If I had a fight that I really What are you saying? Floyd Mayweather I heard Floyd Mayweather's next for Tyron. with all that nonsense. Isn't this what we were talking about? not going to happen. He has the same agent. Listen, that ain't going to happen. But that's Khabib is much more of a grappler than he is a than he is a striker. I mean, Conor is a striker. That that sort of made sense. If if you want to talk about levels, I think Ben's I think Ben's the probably the better the better grappler. Who the knows? That's what I want to see. No,

27:02there's there's levels. Like even though like they don't give black belts in wrestling, there's there's there's levels to that. And and I think Ben Askren was one of the greatest folkstyle wrestlers of all time. Like that's how dangerous he is. He was putting the best the best kids in the world in pretzels and submissions. They just wouldn't get out of his Yeah. He's he's like a boa constrictor. But he's he's stunning in his ability to control guys. Like you're like, "What the man?" Like Korshkov, I mean, and Lima are two great examples. Cuz you look at those guys in Bellator and they just smash people. But Korshkov has one of the craziest spinning back kick knockouts I've ever seen in my life. He sent this dude flying through the air. Did you see that? Like a couple of fights ago? In the Grand Prix. Yeah. that in the Grand Prix. nasty. He hits this dude a spinning back kick

27:49and literally like launches him into space and then smashes him when he goes down to the ground. I mean, you look at what Lima's been able to do to people. When the the Rory MacDonald fight was a very close fight. Look at this. Watch this. Look at this. Boom! Yeah. I mean, He launched that dude. Is that in Boise? I don't know where that was. But so Korshkov, you know, if you watch the Korshkov fight with with Ben Askren and it's a mauling. It's it's it's just a guy just getting up. That's what that fight is. Oh, god. Ben Askren just dominated him. Like absolutely dominated him. See, the dude tried to jump back and landed it landed right as he was in the air. Ow, Chihuahua. Yeah, I know and Ben and this and this guy never got a punch off of Ben Askren. it was a total domination. Same as the Lima fight. Lima crushes people, man. Lima's one of the scariest strikers. I

28:46mean, and knocked out Koreshkov. I mean, Lima smashes people. But, when you see Lima against Ben Askren, I mean, obviously it was a younger Lima. I mean, he's got more experience now, but the difference was so stunning. What do you What is this? This is Askren and Lima. No, it's not. No. No, those are two Chinese guys, bro. That's what it says on top. This is not Askren and Lima. You got to trust me. This is not Askren and Lima, either. It's literally what the video title I'm sure the video's titled that, but I'm I said is Joe being a bully? You got to trust me. Those dudes are not the same guy. Joe, you're losing your patience, man. There it is. There it is. Oh, yeah. Man. I mean, the the just the way he manhandled him. Like, his wrestling is just you see guys that are used to defending takedowns, and then they find themselves on their back, and you say, "Holy man." I think

29:45he did get up-kicked here, and his nose got broken. Oh, yeah, he got cracked. I mean, he Lima's a monster, man. He's a super dangerous striker, and he's huge for the weight class. You stand next to Lima, you're like, "Jesus, how do you make 170?" He stru- he does it in the in the jacuzzi at the hotel. I've seen him. Yeah, no, he's he's struggling to make that weight. He's a big guy. But, anyway, point being, Ben Askren at 170, super super interesting fight. I would like to Personally, the fight that I would like to see I like to see him and uh him and Colby. Colby Covington. Ben and Colby? Yeah, that would be really interesting. Yeah. I think but isn't Colby next in line for the title? I mean, I think he's got the interim belt. If he has the interim belt, I'm surprised he still has the belt, though. Huh. Yeah. Yeah, it's in the it's in the White House.

30:39He doesn't have it anymore. It's sitting in the White House. But, I mean, did they didn't strip him, did they? Cuz there was some talk of stripping him because he was supposed to You're not that I know of. I don't think there was ever a strip, so I think they're I think they're trying to market it. As I think as soon as you you get the champ Wikipedia here says he was the interim from June 9th to September 8th. Oh, so they did strip him. Oh, so they did strip So, the the stripping was because they wanted him to fight on the Darren Till card. When Darren Till fought Tyron, they wanted him to fight Tyron. And apparently, he had gone through, you know, hard training camp. He was all busted up. He needed time to recover. So, I guess they stripped him. Yeah. That whole man interim titles. Interim titles are like attached with Velcro. They just disappear. They get yanked off you.

31:26Yeah, seriously. They're not They're not really They're not really like Especially that UFC 229. I mean, they all had belts. Tony Ferguson had a belt. Conor had a belt. You know, obviously Khabib had his belt. So, you had three people walking around belts. The Tony Ferguson one to me is is a shame. It's a shame that a guy gets injured and then they strip him like that. That doesn't make any sense to me. I didn't like that one. That one bothered me. Uh I feel like Tony should still have the interim title. I really do. Yeah, but that was like the third time that fight have had fallen, right? I know, it sucks, but the other one wasn't his fault. The other one was Khabib. Khabib, right? Khabib was supposed to make the weight and he you know, he got So, it's two to two to one. Two to one, that's a good argument. Uh So, how many times did Khabib pull out and how many times did

32:11Tony pull out? Tony Tony pulled out once for sure because he was injured, the last one, when his knee blew apart. And then Khabib definitely got yanked off the card once with the weight the weight cut, remember? The weight cut was so bad that his kidneys were failing. Mhm. Yeah. Either way We've been there. Yeah, that that's the fight. Now, do you do you like fighting at 35? Cuz I know you fought at 35 for a while when you were struggling to make flyweight. You had you had some issues early on in your career where you really didn't make the weight very well. Mhm. Yeah, I was uh God, I was I was getting older, I think, in my career. I think the reason why I started having weight problems was because of uh I was just getting older and I was doing some crazy stuff. Like I used to cut like my Keep this microphone up. Like I used to I used to uh I used to to cut about 16 lb like in in

33:04uh two 2-hour sessions. What? Yeah, as a as as a flyweight or supposed to be flyweight. Why were you doing that? Because I I felt like it because I'm a wrestler. I think uh my my whole philosophy at first when I when I got into MMA um was kind of like I I I in wrestling we we would never get the same recovery. I know it's stupid. It's stupid as heck. But we would we would we would never get the recovery that a fighter gets. So to to me it was like, "Dude, I I I can I can stretch this as as long as I can and and and I can suffer the day of weigh-ins, but I'm going to recover within 24 20 28 hours sometimes." You know, so to me I I was looking at it a very I I just had an odd way. So you just And it finally started catching up to me. So you just had confidence in your body's ability to bounce back even though you're putting it through an extraordinary amount of

33:53stress in losing massive amounts of weight really quickly. You just felt like your body could handle it. You're tough. Mhm. You're used to it. Yeah, it was it was the whole cuz, you know, in wrestling we would make weight like every uh every every week sometimes. We would wrestle so much that we're we're used to kind of like that whole that whole struggle side of things and then okay, we wrestle again, we do it again. What kind of weight cut we talking about when you were wrestling? How much were you cutting? Um um and I was a lot more disciplined then, but I was probably doing about 12 lb, but I had no fat. Like at that at that time I was eating just as healthy and as clean as possible. Because I would I would make weight every every every, you know, every 3 weeks I had a tournament. You know, I had George Lockhart on and he was explaining to me that a lot of people think that when you

34:38cut weight that, you know, like you're cutting out fat. He's like, you're not cutting out fat, you're cutting out water and it actually helps to to have more muscle because muscle is mostly water. So, you just draining out your muscles then replenishing them. You know, when he was explaining that to me I was like, I never really thought about that way. But like a guy like a Yoel Romero who's very muscular can actually cut more weight. Yeah. Yeah. Now, you're pretty muscular guy for a flyweight. So, you were walking around how many pounds over? Oh man, I was I was probably cutting from like maybe 20 25. Wow. So, you're walking around like 150 and getting down to 25. Holy I just had lost I just you know, a lot of it too you because you fight three times a year like you're not always you're not always honest with your diet either. You know, come from coming from Mexican

35:29descent we like to we love to eat man. You go to my mom's house and it's it's going to be laid down. But when you're in camp, how do you organize your nutrition? Oh this I'm I'm disciplined. I have a I have a meal prep company they deliver my food like every three like every three days. And is your meal prep based on your suggestions to them or your recommendations and directions to them? Yeah, no a lot of it's based on kind of well, my diet's just according to kind of like my training schedule. So, my my training is very very organized. Like now Joe, I'm like a pretty much I'm a I'm a I'm a professional now I guess you could say. Like I I I do things, you know, the right way. I use the whole scientific route and nutrition route just uh almost like how Bernard Hopkins kind of as he got older man, he kind of changed his whole philosophy started using science more. Mhm. So, I think

36:22everything now in my life when I get ready for fights is all based on it's all based on science. How did Bernard change his training? Do you know? Um he's he he just started recovering more. I think he started using a lot of those neuro stems um uh hyperbaric chambers thing things of that matter things of that matter and just more scientific base like just his whole training all like all around. And did you incorporate any of those methods? I did. I did actually I ended up you know connecting with this connecting with this company called NeuroForce One you know science based company and I actually wanted to bring them in to kind of to kind of talk about it Joe because this right here man just changed my my whole philosophy we're talking about the whole weight cut how how the whole weight weight cut how I struggled to to how my whole training has changed because of because of

37:08because of science. Mhm. And a science that's very a science that's very I guess complex you could say. You got to have like the right people man like dictating your schedule. So when you set up a training camp like this how far in advance do you sit down and work out all the details? It's almost like the the morning that we wake up is what we know we're going to do. Right but how like say if you know you have a fight in July when would you start preparing for that and when do you sit down and map everything out? Well we try to map things out maybe about 3 months in advance kind of like a preparation and to leading to the camp and that's kind of like the phase that we're on now like now we're on like you know if I fight if it is at a fight in January it's almost like our schedule is like there's there's there's a pretest to the big test. So tomorrow's November

37:571st so if you were getting ready for a fight in January you would start ramping up somewhere around now? Yeah but it would it would it would be more of it would I think the first the first month leading up to the next 8 weeks would be a lot of it would be a technical and tactical just working on those particular areas that were that we believe we're going to be in. So you're not doing anything crazy strength and conditioning wise you're not trying to break your body down. No. No, it could be cuz it's all it's all a learning phase at that point. You know, working the body, getting preparing the body with a lot of body motion movements and things of that matter. Kind of just bringing more circulation to certain parts of my body. Then rather than you know, somebody picking up a kettlebell and throwing it and and and crazy things like that. Like like it's it's all it's all sports

38:43specific. Right. Right. Range of motion. So, how do you organize this? Like how do what who what is the team of people that you use and like who's responsible for what? Yeah, well well like I said, I think Cuz you got a whole crew in the back. People don't know. The man the man Captain America's with you, but you got you get the rest of the Avengers are all waiting in the waiting room. Yeah, the the We first I was going to say we first found him when he hurt his hand and he had to rehab it. Hold on, let me get this off. Oh, see it's going in layers. It's going in layers, dude. So, he had hurt his hand before um he his first fight with Sergio Pettis and I was trying to find any way for him to still compete and we found somebody using this machine which led us to actually Neuro Force One and Kareem and all these guys and we tried to force it for him to get back in time.

39:34And I have video of him just screaming in pain trying to get there and we thought we stayed off it for a couple weeks and then the the day of the face off, he went to cut weight and he said his wrist kept slipping out and we had to pull him from the fight. We went to see the doctor. Doctor said it no way, shouldn't fight. So, What was the injury? Uh I think it was a and it ended up being something with a sprained ligament. Yeah, I think it was a I had sprained like uh one of my ligaments in my hand. So, there was just there was nothing I could do. Like I would I would I would open the cap bottle for the for you know, to kind of to brush my teeth. And like it when it hurt to that point, I'm just like man, I I I can't do anything. So, then I that know, I ended up all they ended up Eric here ended up connecting me with with Neuro Force and found out that they had like these

40:23certain machines that help you heal faster. And what do the machines do? Accelerated recovery. So it was like neuro stem and they have about a thousand programs on it and they just forced him to to recover a lot faster. The The best example was UFC fighter Pantoja. He was on The Ultimate Fighter 24 with us, our number one seed that we picked, Alexandre Pantoja. I saw him blow three ligaments out of his elbow and he started crying cuz he had a fight in eight weeks in Ireland, no, Scotland. And um I said, "No, no, no, don't go home tomorrow." He's supposed to be going back home to Brazil and I said, "No, no, no, no, let's try this. You got to try it." And they did it twice two sessions a day for 10 days and he went back and he and he fought. He fought that guy and beat him. He rear naked choked that guy, Neil Seery, and put that guy in retirement. So after that, I was like,

41:16"What do I We need these guys, Henry. Whatever these guys did to Pantoja, whatever that we need to do it for you." And that's how it started. injured like that and you're you're still going through camp, how do you work around that injury? You just say, "Okay, there's nothing squeezing, nothing where you putting any strain on those tag tendons, nothing where you're doing anything with that hand that's going to reinjure it." I think you just have to hope for somebody to wrap it very well. Like they're you you're you're screwed. Yeah. Like having like a hand injury is like the probably the worst injury you could have. I mean, we we eat with these hands, you know. Right. This is our This is how we survive. Yeah. And when you have an injury like that, there's you're going to be fighting with the other. Do you remember uh when Urijah Faber fought Mike Brown Mhm. and broke both hands

42:00Yeah. and just started throwing elbows? And slapping them. And just didn't give in for a second. Yeah. That's how tough that is. Two broken hands, just trying to find a way to win. Yeah, it's miserable. That's a yeah, It was a title fight, too. Yep. Yep. You do amazing things for title fights. No, but I I I I want I wanted to bring in Joe, if you allow me. I'm cuz because I'm honored, man, and I think uh I think uh I brought them in Joe cuz I want to kind of share uh you know, kind of like the new age stuff, like something that's just taking over the top. Mhm. So, Kevin, if you can hear me, come on. can't. There's a bit long delay. There's like a 30-second delay. You can go grab him. I'll grab him. I'll grab him. Yeah, go grab him, Captain. He's going to come back with a new layer removed. He's going to come back with a cape. He's going to come back naked.

42:49Uh we don't have another microphone, though, unfortunately. So, he's going to have to take your spot cuz there's not not another microphone. What do you think of Captain America, man? When we use a fourth microphone, we actually have to set it up, and it's not up right now. And Joe, what do you think of Captain America? He's hilarious. I think that weed got to him. Oh, man. You know how you are with uh uh uh with Eddie, that's kind of how how he how I am with him, you know? It's It's that It's that No, it's that certain relationship. Yep. Yep. Hey, man, that helps. How are you, sir? Welcome. Good. How you doing, Joe? Push up. Tell everybody who you are. Yeah, man, I'm Kevin Longoria. I am the Chief Science Officer for Neuro Force One, and then I'm a neurophysiologist as well. So. keep this about like a fist from your face. Okay. So, um tell us what your role was

43:35in camp and uh what what you did to to help him get ready. Cool. Yeah. So, Neuro Force One is a neuroscience-based training company and a medical-grade diagnostic testing company as well. Uh we're at a Scottsdale, Arizona. So, what we really focus on, which a lot of companies aren't talking about, is the role of the gut and the mind in conjunction with your physical training. So, essentially what we do is we start off with a really comprehensive baseline assessment. We want to run them through everything. So, the traditional functional threshold powers, autonomic nervous system, DC brain potentials. And really what you want to do is you want to put somebody on a on a normal curve. What is a DC brain potential? DC brain potential is a It's like you want to be like Daniel Cormier. Yeah, sounds like DC brain want to be a little bit like DC. But uh basically it's a an objective

44:18measurement of your central nervous system. So you can actually your central nervous system is basically the data aggregator, if you will. So it has to take information from your metabolic systems, your autonomics, kind of coordinate things like neuromuscular and metabolic efficiency. So it's kind of the the data center, if you will. So this is a measurement of of potential, basically how much energy you have in the in the central nervous system to go coordinate neuromuscular and metabolic efficiencies, which is really what we focus on. So And so is this on like a chart? Are you getting it like is there a number reading that you're getting? Like what is it that Correct. Specifically for DCs, it's going to be in millivolts. And then you just compare that to normative ranges. But most importantly, what it is is trending data over time. This is an assessment that we would do on Henry

44:59every single morning. It's a home test kit. We really believe in just collecting as much data as possible and trending data. That way when you see a a change, essentially get predictability in terms of now today's a no-go day because central nervous system is diminished. We're just going to be going through the motions. We're not going to make physiological adaptations. Uh and your inflammation is really high. No-go because we're not going to go risk injury when we can't make adaptations. So this is a measurement we would do every single morning where we can look at autonomic nervous system, which is basically things like recovery, sympathetic, parasympathetic balance, DC brain potentials, and metabolic systems. And what is what is measuring all these things? Is there a device? Is it a Yeah, yeah. This is a pretty amazing device. We actually uh got it from the UFC

45:39Performance Institute. You know, shout out to those guys, Clint, Beau, and Roman over there. Um set us up with this technology. It's a basically a chest strap that does heart rate variability, so time and frequency domain analysis. And then it does DC brain potential. So a little sticker right here on your forehead. Uh basically 4 minutes, you just kind of relax, and we collect pretty amazing data, and it breaks it down into four different categories, what's called windows of trainability. So it says today we should focus on strength and power or skill acquisition based on metabolic readiness, autonomic readiness, and DC brain potentials. So what is our body primed to go do today? Cuz if you're not primed, your nervous system doesn't have the energy, you're just going to be going through the motions. So you're sort of there to dictate when it's going to be a hard

46:21day, when it's going to be an easy day. Correct. Yeah, and that's something as you I'm sure you guys know in wrestling it's it's always hard. Always let's go. Um so this was a little bit of an issue in the camp at the very beginning if you could imagine. Henry wakes up, it's a sparring day where maybe even supposed to do two-a-days. He wakes up feeling really good and nervous system is out of whack. He's like, "Sorry man, I know you feel good, but you're not, you know, not Wow. Yeah, so we would go a no-go that day and, you know, as you could see it all worked out in the long run. So out fantastic, but was that weird for you to feel good and then do we told you got to chill out? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it was it almost takes a while to kind of adapt, but I started as I started recognizing like my body change and how I felt in sparring and how they were and

47:04how kind of I I just felt recovered. I was like, "God, this is this is crazy." Like I I didn't run at all this whole camp. So do you get a baseline off of this Eric, you got to stop moving around. You're freaking me out. He's doing hand signals back there. He's freaking me out. He's translating for the deaf people. So what do you do a a baseline on this before you get started and then you as before camp gets started and then when camp starts ramping up, then you start measuring all the various details? Correct. Yeah, so we do a comprehensive baseline assessment including the OmegaWave as well as, you know, six or eight hours of other testing. Everything that you could think of under the sun. Then we put together a basically columns of this is what you're sub-optimal at, this is what you're average at, this is what you're really damn good at. So basically what we want to do is exploit

47:48your functional strengths, it's what you're good at, but then we also want to focus on your functional deficiencies. In a sport like MMA, we also sometimes have the advantage of looking at your opponent and making certain assumptions in terms of their weaknesses, their strengths. Going against somebody like DJ, you don't you don't really have that advantage. So, we really needed to focus on is what Henry's really good at, his ground game. You look, you know, we're doing nervous system assessments while he's on the ground. His sparring partners, their stress systems are going like crazy. He's calming down cuz this guy likes to be on the floor rolling around. So, we pinpoint these little strategic uh strengths and deficiencies, and then we target all of his nutrition, supplementation. A big thing that we focus on is nutrient timing, something that's not really talked about as well.

48:28But, when you're talking about gut health and you know, recovery, managing the hormones associated with exercise, you got to be getting in the right nutrients in your your energy, anabolic, and growth phases. So, nutrient timing, you're talking about like when you're actually eating and what you're eating. So, you're planning that out as well. 100% yes. We put together a nutrition program, and because training varies every morning, we're deciding what we're going to do for the day, it's completely dynamic. So, we're kind of reinventing the game of periodization and programming because you can't give somebody an 8-week plan. You have to check every single day. This is how you stay very dynamic and you avoid plateaus and just the issues, you know, it's always going to lead to suboptimal performance if you're programming out. So, every day we adjust, you know, we're doing this

49:10intensity of training. We did a VO2 max assessment. So, we know exactly how much glycogen you're burning at various levels of intensity. We do heart rate tracking during your training. All right, this is exactly what you have to replace following. So, I'm standing on the sidelines, you know, after every practice mixing up custom supplements for him as well. So, this is something kind of stuff? Um you know, we have our own supplement line right now. Um frankly, not because the world needed another supplement line. It's not really what our goal was. Um in in sports like this, you have to be so careful what you're putting in these guys' body. Uh so, we just went the route of going GMP certified, WADA USADA approved on everything we do. Um eventually, we want to, you know, try and work with a badass company cuz we're not we don't want to be in the supplement game. For us, it

49:49was just quality control. Um so, being a nervous system-based company, obviously we're doing things like omega-3, DHAs, BCAAs, you know, to maintain, put on a little bit of muscle. Um, we do a lot of big one that I believe in the is the Generation UCAN, the Superstarch. Very good without a big glycemic, you know, big insulin response, but very good at replenishing your glycogen stores following to minimize cortisol and inflammatory responses and things like that. So, um, every day it's a little bit different, but uh, yeah, we ended up going with our own line and one of the biggest things that we we never really talk about in the fight as well is the the role that gut health plays. So, that's something Henry does year-round, regardless of when we're fighting, is take our line, which is called Freedom Cleanser Store. This is world-renowned, um, you know, utilized by university

50:31researchers all all around the world right now. And basically it's all just about restoring good gut bacteria, prebiotics, probiotics, and lymphatic cleansing. And this is going to be something um, that really played a big role in his weight cut as well. It's kind of a missing link that athletes aren't talking about, but good gut health is going to help with serotonin production, so recovery, relaxation, mood, you know, production of brain-derived neurotrophic factors, so our nervous system can make these adaptations and learn new skills and things along these lines. So, this is something, you know, in my opinion, a big reason why, uh, you know, he had the issue with DJ the first time around. Henry Henry will tell the story like he had gut inflammation so bad that people would say, "Good luck before the fight." Tap his gut and and that hurt him. You know, that's not normal and that all

51:14goes back to the issues associated with weight cutting as we were talking about a little bit. But, uh, getting that gut health right, no inflammation, and and that goes a long way. Now, how long have you guys been in business for? Uh, we've only been in business for about 8 months. We're we're still very new. Um, been working with Henry a little bit longer than that. Um, but yeah, this company's just getting off the ground. We kind of rebranded a few months ago, just opened our first facility as well out in Scottsdale. What what is your background in? Um, I'm a I'm a physiologist. I would open the first mobile medical-grade diagnostic testing company in Arizona. So, basically I I would have these diagnostics and largely was trying to trying to fix the healthcare system a little bit, you know, we want individualized solutions, we want data-driven outcomes, right? You want

51:55quantifiable progress. So, people want to feel good about what they're doing, but maybe a doctor can't afford a this big-ass metabolic cart or they don't know how to use it. So, what I did is I purchased this equipment, hired technicians, and we would bring it mobile. You know, technology's getting smaller, more mobile. So, this was my idea of how I would go make my little dent in the healthcare system. You know, there were issues with scalability in terms of finding good technicians, but the goal is just to go out there and provide data-driven solutions, right? We live in a world of subjectivity, guesswork, a very punishment-oriented fitness system where it sucks to start working out. You you typically gain weight if you're doing the right stuff cuz you're getting hydrated. You go get injured, you know, the goal is to redefine how we assess people so that we

52:36can find these little little tweaks for positive reinforcement, and that's uh goes a long way with healthcare as well as fitness. So, you guys mostly working with civilians or you working with pro athletes or Uh right now we're in the research and development phase. So, we're really only working with guys like uh Henry, Victoria Anthony, a a very badass wrestler we're working with right now as well. Um just some amazing people largely for research and development. We we trade them the training for the data. You know, And how did you guys get together? Uh we've been working with Henry about a year. He He knew our CEO, Kareem Amin, a great guy. We've kind of all circle around Kareem. He brought us all together. Um but uh you know, he came in probably about 8 months ago for a little bit before the first camp, and we met, talked, and you know, Henry was straight up. He's

53:19like, "Man, you know your stuff, but you don't know MMA." So, I took that, you know, personally. We you know, spent a lot of time together. I had to learn the sport. I'm a physiologist, not an MMA physiologist. So, we really took the time to get to know each other, you know, hang out a lot now. I got to go to his house and wake him up every day for 8 weeks. So, that was We got to know each other pretty well. I do his meal preps and stuff. Yeah. That's a fantastic combination, though. A guy like you who knows so much about the body and recovery and a real super high level Olympic gold medalist athlete. I mean when you get that combination I mean that is that's really a dream for a guy like you and for a guy like you. Like for both of you guys to come together like this. I understand why you wanted to bring him on as well. Yeah, I mean you know if you understand

54:06half of if you understand half of it. I can pretend I know. Yeah, yeah, the DC mind thing. Yeah, that that shit's important. But no, I mean I do feel honored and blessed to be able to work with somebody like Henry. He's the hardest working guy out there and and of course the hard work goes a long ways but man this guy is a genetic freak as well. I I've had the ability to test Olympic athletes many other sports as well. This guy makes adaptations faster than anybody. He came off a you know 12 weeks eight 16 weeks maybe of not training VO2s already in the high 60s functional threshold power. That would go compete with the you know world class Iron Man that I'm training and things as well and then I mean we we did some amazing stuff. If you looked at the body composition changes that we did in 7 weeks it wasn't even a full 8 week camp. He put on 4.2 pounds of skeletal muscle mass like good

54:55mass which as a physiologist I would call on if I didn't see with my own two eyes. Yeah, incredible and and you know Henry will tell you he may be picked up weights like three or four times. We don't really do traditional strength training because you know a lot of people just it's called vector based training. So a lot of people do things like squats and dead lifts. This is an axial plane. Like we don't live in this up and down plane. So we break it down by vector. What angles does he need to exert and absorb force in very effectively and very rarely does that come down to actually utilizing weights. We do things like positional isometrics and eccentric training and things along these lines. Number one they integrate with the nervous system very effectively. Isometrics? Yeah, positional isometrics. kind of like planks? Um mean that's that's kind of a low level of it. Yeah,

55:39largely what you would want to do is like a biomechanical assessment and look at overactive and underactive muscles. And then you put them in very specific positions and you leverage what's called recip- reciprocal inhibition. So basically in then the most basic term like when I'm flexing my bicep, my tricep is relaxing. So you'd hold certain positions so that you want to turn on certain muscles and kind of turn off other ones. It's kind of a high level of of PNF stretching, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. So this is what would be done in like a PT office. So what in in like for wrestling, like what kind of exercises would you do that would incorporate those methods? I mean wrestling is you know largely a torsional sport. So when it comes to wrestling we do things like like Kaeser like pneumatic compressions and things like that. So instead of using weights

56:23we use air pressure basically. It's very smooth, very low risk of injury and they live in this this torsional plane. So you do a lot of transverse plane. Then we do a lot of velocity based training as well. Actually really interesting study that was published recently. They had a lot of guys working out of for a full year. Some only did velocity, never actually picked up a weight. The other ones did traditional strength training. The people who did velocity based training, not no actual weight training, got stronger with less muscular hypertrophy. I mean they didn't get as big but they were stronger at the end of the day. So when you look at something like wrestling and MMA where you got to make a low weight but you want to be strong as possible, you know velocity based training is kind of the way of the future. So this is kind of our general gym concept that we're building right

57:04now. It is you know the gym of the future may not need weights. You know you we're going to be next door to these CrossFit gyms where they're throwing all these weights over their head getting injured. We're next door, empty gym and people are getting stronger. That's that's kind of the the gym of the future the way we see it. How would you define velocity based training? Um so basically what you want to do is it's kind of like the new one rep max. We all know one rep maxes aren't the safest thing to perform, right? Um so you would there's different assessments. Actually what I'm wearing here on my wrist right now. This is the wearable tech of the future. This is something we're testing right now. This does velocity. So, I could stand in any position. I could do a a push press or I could do a punch. This is going to measure my velocity. Your max velocity

57:42at no weight would be your one rep max velocity basically. And then you're going and you're doing your training. So, max velocity every single rep when you hit 20% dampening. So, say I was at 10 m/s. As soon as I hit 8 m 8 m/s, I stop. So, this is kind of what they call fatigue. So, you stop that. So, instead of doing you know, you're going to do eight reps. You do as many reps as you can until you reach a certain dampening of velocity. And what are you doing them with? Like Um largely things like the Kaizer, the functional trainer if you're familiar with that. Band work, yeah, things like that. I mean, very rarely we'll throw like, you know, Indian clubs and things like that in there as well. So, it all depends on the sport and what we're focusing on that day, you know, metabolic readiness, things along those lines. But, it's all just about training in the right vectors

58:24and and being able to not only put out force, but absorb force as well, which nobody really talks about. If you look at largely other professional sports, all these injuries are happening in the deceleration phase. So, when people are trying to slow down, this is absorbing force. This is kind of similar to some of the the pieces that just aren't trained in MMA as well. You guys got to be able to absorb force just like you put it out. Now, when you're this wrist thing that you're wearing, it measures velocity. So, how is it doing that? Um so, basically I have one here and then I have one on my shoe as well. So, it can do it by using two sensors, it can measure relative velocity. So, it's reading one relative to the other. This is also doing everything that a badass traditional wearable would do as well. So, it's doing my heart rate, heart rate variability, which is actually clinical

59:07grade. Everything we do has got to be clinical grade cuz what's the point of collecting data if it's right? Um and then it does pulse oximetry. So, I'm looking at my oxygen saturation. Uh the next version is going to be able to do hydration, all kinds of badass stuff. What's really cool about it as well is it can measure form. Any exercise that you're doing, we can compare you essentially to an ideal form. And because we have two, you don't even have to tell it you're doing a power clean. It can read your motions and things like that, and it gives you like a consistency number as well. So, we one thing we really talk about is is not building muscle on top of dysfunction. We have to get your biomechanical patterns right first, and then we start putting muscle on. If you just put muscle on top of dysfunction, you're facilitating further dysfunction. Would you have to wear one of those on

59:49each hand? Um I mean, I'd say the the ideally for someone like a fighter, you obviously are throwing with both hands. Um I I think it would be ideal. Um it's it's really difficult to time sync multiple devices to be on the same timeline. So, that's something we're working with this company, amazing company actually out of here out of LA, to develop this thing right now. So, that I would say that would be the goal. It's it's not something that's going to be applicable to the the average guy though as well. This we're we're trying to bring this type of training to everybody. Would it be possible instead of uh time syncing it, you have a a left and a right computer, like two different computers that are reading data, both on one off the left, one off the right, so you don't have to coordinate them, and then you just look at the the various data? Yeah, I mean, at the end of the

60:27day, you still would have to sync them, you know? So, the the thing there, you'd be collecting it in two different sets of hardware. You'd want an API connectivity, put it up in the cloud, and then you'd still at the end of the day have to find the same time axis. So, it it sounds simpler than it really would be. That's why this is the only wearable in the world right now that has even one in the foot. And so, this also allows you to track your gait while you're running and things as well, but the more devices, the more complex, and and you know, that that's something I I think would be great, but maybe not applicable to everybody. Is it going to be able to track martial arts moves? Like, will it be able to track a double leg takedown or a roundhouse kick or anything like that? Right now, you can program it to do anything. Um you you put it into a kind

61:04of like a learning mode on on your app. You do a few motions, you name it, and then it can can basically compare you to yourself in that mode. So, you can try and do perfect form and measure your form relative to yourself. But, if you have shitty form, you're comparing yourself to shitty form. Exactly. So, it doesn't know any better. Exactly. So, what we're doing right now, um which which will be a little bit of a lengthy process, is defining a library of perfect form for everything that you could think of. And then this, you know, this is going to unlock telehealth and tele-training. When you have something like that, we can do remote programming and and have be, you know, be monitoring people's neuromuscular function, their biomechanics completely remotely. So, that's that's really what we're going towards. Wow, this is fascinating stuff, man. You know, there's always been uh

61:44several aspects to getting a fighter ready for camp. There's always been their skill set, what what they're good at, um specific training for that one individual opponent that they're going to face, and then all the strength and conditioning. And you know, it's usually thought of as, you know, weights and sprints and plyos and and all these different things, but I feel like this is probably the next step. The next step measuring all of your all these variables that you're talking about and and seeing how your body is at any given time, so that you're not just guessing whether you're peaking. You're scientifically peaking. Exactly, man. I mean, there's there's just no room for guesswork and subjectivity, you know, at this level. And and technology doesn't There's no need for it anymore. So, we're just trying to let people know like this is available, right? So, we're

62:29developing it and then the end goal is just to make it extremely user-friendly, right? So, you're doing your your velocity-based training and it says stop, and then you rest, and we're using your heart rate variability to tell you when to go again. So, like, you know, it's easy to stop and go for your your periodization and things like that. So, the the technology's here, now making it, you know, actionable rec- recommendations for the individual that can understand is is kind of what we're moving towards. This is awesome stuff, man. Thank you. Yeah, we're really passionate about what we're doing. you've only been around for such a short amount of time, too, and yet you already have a world champion. Oh, I know, man. I mean, I feel, you know, there's times where you feel like you didn't you deserve the opportunity because I'm I'm new to the field, you know, we obviously

63:06work our asses off and everything, but the for Henry to put the faith into us, you know, this was a world champion camp. We're a company Honestly, we're not even open yet. We're This is we, you know, probably have one of the best acceleration for a company that's never seen the light of day ever. Um, you know, we also are in a few other sports as well. But yeah, for him to give us this opportunity and you know, we felt like we we owed him something. So we we worked extra hard, essentially put our entire company on hold for 8 weeks to to go help him out and you know, it's paying dividends obviously. We're here right now, so. Now, are you guys going to be open to the general public? Say the the the average girl or guy who does say jiu jitsu tournaments and wants to get in the best shape of their life. Is there are you going to have products for them and and and a service where they can

63:47sign up for something like that? Certainly. Right now we are already open in terms of of diagnostic testing. So you can come in based on your sport, your goal, whatever it may be. We do have customized diagnostic packages cuz some assessments just aren't applicable to some people. So we customize your assessment. We basically tell you what you're good at, what you're bad at. Then if you want to, you know, develop a program that's a little bit of an upcharge. The The real goal there is to be able to do completely remote training, completely in-house training, and then any level of hybrid training as well. So right now, you know, what the world needs is the diagnostic testing, the data. We're already ready to do that. What we're building now is the processes of being able to use data, put it into recommendations, and then scale that. It's hard to teach somebody, you

64:28know, everything that I do. So we're building the, you know, the the softwares to essentially replicate ourselves. Like my my buddy in the other room, Andre Hicks, one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the world. These guys will attest to it. You can't teach people what he knows. So we have to like code this into a software, a lot of if-then type stuff. And then this is able to be scalable to everybody. We want to provide this training uh, to to people, you know, the average Joe trying to lose weight, you know, the weekend warrior, the the jiu jitsu everything, man. We want to be able to provide this to everybody. Everybody deserves this type of training. That's minimal risk of injury, high yield return, efficient. That's what everyone's looking for and that's that's why, you know, the people are getting fatter. There's there's no good positive

65:09reinforcement out there and there's no clear road map of how to get to where you want to be. You know, we we put together like you know, comparing it to Google Maps. Everybody knows their end point. They know where they want to be, but it can't tell you where you're at unless you know exactly where you're starting from. You have to do this baseline assessment. You know, sometimes it sucks to really understand how fat your you know, your body fat percentage and and your metabolics and your risk of you know, your insulin resistance and things like that, but you have to figure out where you're starting from, where you want to be and that's how we develop a road map. So, getting people you know, and and we believe this is this is the way of kind of making our way into the health care system as well. That's our end goal as a company. It's people to provide you know, integrative fitness is

65:45what we're calling it. Taking little pieces from all the different methodologies of a fitness like you know, we we bring meditation and yoga into our practice as well. So, little pieces of just about everything and and be able to you know, provide this to everybody. That's what we're doing. So, in the future when you guys are open, you're you're not totally open to the general public yet, right? Correct. Yeah, about six or eight months. Would someone have to come to you for the first initial assessments and then possibly be able to do the consulting either online or you know, through through their the application? I mean, there's totally different degrees. Um we have 100% remote kits right now. There's badass stuff you can do on your iPad like biomechanical assessments that can find your joints and things like that. We can send this to you. There's a

66:26lot of things that we want to be able to do 100% remote. For the most complex assessment, you got to come in. You got to do a VO2 max assessment. We can't send you a metabolic cart and obviously. So, the the goal is to get people to just come into the facility and then do remote programming from there. And this is you know, our our concept is to put these diagnostic centers and possibly the attached training centers as well and just start providing these everywhere cuz frankly, if we just went you know, the the diagnostic gym of the future route, it could be five, six hundred square feet, low you know, low overhead facilities that are just really efficient. You know, just putting people out, collecting data left and right. That's amazing, man. Well, what has it been like for you to make this gigantic change and to basically be like Ivan Drago? Yeah, pretty much. That's that's

67:09that's pretty much how it's kind of how it's kind of been. Like we took in that uh the Ivan Drago approach probably more than the Rocky approach, you know? Which which I think I think Russians kind of tend to use science a little bit more in their training. So, to me at first it was almost like, man, I'm going all in on this especially this camp against Demetrious. I'm like, God, I'm I'm I'm going all in, man. Like I'm I'm going to have faith in in the science of like 100%. I'm going to do everything according even even, you know, even if even if I don't want to. And that's And I think it just as I started to see my body change, I started seeing like the coaches kind of adapt with like, okay, man, science is in the center of this whole camp. And I saw the change, yo, and I've never felt so recovered the night that I fought Demetrious Johnson. Like I've

67:51never felt so good and I'm 31 years old and I've been cutting weight since I've since I've been a kid. So, you felt a big difference through the entire camp doing this kind of method? Yeah, through the entire camp. And people would trip out. They'd be like people were like, man, you're committing you're you're that's suicide, dude. How come you're not doing this? How come you're not doing that? And uh you would have to kind of how come you're not doing? Like what specifically? Oh, no, just uh just more work, more more pad work, more more sparring rounds, like things of that matter. Like the kind of like the gladiator stuff. And they're like, no, no, no, it's it's it's it's going to go according to my heart rate. It's It's going to go according to what what my windows what my train of my windows of opportunity of training are. You know, it's it's what kind of mumbo jumbo are you talking

68:38about? Like nobody Yeah, like nobody knows like the day that I wake up, the day that I train. Like nobody knows what's going on until until until the data's gone in the hands of Kevin and Neuro Force One and then they'll okay, they they determine this is how many rounds, this is how how we're going to kind of peak you for your fight. If you could imagine uh standing on the sideline when he's like sparring in rounds and stuff and we're slow down, pace your like coach is like, you can't do that. This is fighting. You can't try and control your heart rate while training. No, this is training for fighting, right? You know, so we're we're constantly telling him to train less, slow himself down. You know, there was a little bit of clashing there at the beginning and then they started to see the body composition come around and started to to feel his power and and

69:17everyone kind of bought into the process, but it it takes a while. We're now we're we're redefining it and and we understand that there's going to be some pushback. This is such a universal concept when it comes to strength and conditioning coaches. It's being discussed over and over again nowadays. Is it people are doing too much. They're doing too much and your body just doesn't have a chance to recover and even though you're getting in better shape, ultimately you're not getting in as good a shape as you could have gotten if you did less, which is so counterintuitive for most people. Yeah, and that's kind of how that's that's that's kind of how I used to train so hard, but I used to get hurt. I mean, I used to have back spasms kicking. Like that's how hard I would train. Like how my back would literally go out just kicking. I'd throw one kick and Right.

70:01to pull me off the gym in a stretcher. Yeah. and and I had those problems because I had just I really I I didn't you almost train according to how how you know, what the how the schedule is rather than okay, this is this is this is the approach today because this is how this is this is how your stress levels are. Yeah. Like relax, dude. And then and then at times you're going to go hard and it's it it'll spike you at time and it's it's it's crazy. Well, that's the the crazy contrast, right? It's between this championship mentality that just wants to do more than anybody, push harder, train while everybody else is asleep, put your body through more than anybody else is willing to do because that's what makes a champion. And then someone like you comes along and goes, "No, that's what you up. You need to slow down. You need to do less less rounds, move slower."

70:50Yeah, exactly. I mean, that was one of the biggest things I told him. If you're not sleeping 8 to 10 hours a night when you're putting your body through something like this, you're you're doing your body an injustice and you're not going to make adaptations. When we're out there training, we're breaking our body down. It needs this repair. We need to, you know, activate our glymphatic system, our brain's waste removal system as well so we can go learn some new things the next day as well. So, if you're not sleeping, you're suboptimal just like you're not properly hydrated and things as well. This is This is all comes down to the cellular level, you know, nervous system base approach. Now, are you taking melatonin or anything to ensure that you go to sleep at a specific time? Do you time your sleep schedule? Like how how are you organizing that? Yeah, I I think I think

71:30and and and that's another thing. Even at times, uh according to when I would go to sleep cuz at times, you know how you train late and sometimes you come back and it it it just takes you a while to go to sleep. Yeah. So, even then it would it would be like, all right, when when Henry's ready to wake up, when he Obviously, if I don't hit my alarm and I snooze it, I'm more likely they're they're going to allow me to sleep an extra 2 hours. Mhm, which is important. Yeah, so it's like the It's kind of like what Floyd does. Floyd will be like, "Hey, we'll wake everybody up at 3:00 in the morning." But there's no scientific to what Floyd's doing. Like to us, it's like, "Hey, dude. Let's We have to peak today so I've always wondered if there is science behind it and he just doesn't talk about it. You know, with Floyd, like you don't know. Yeah, I'd like to think so. Yeah,

72:12like when he drinks a Pepsi after a workout. I was like, I wonder if there's no science that told him to do that to replenish his body with a a ton of sugar. I mean, high glycemic carbs right after. That's the only time it's really good that 45-minute window of insulin sensitivity. So, I do believe that. And one technology we While we're on the sleep thing, one that we're utilizing for Henry, just little light microcurrent here to your temporal lobes and it's proven to increase serotonin and melatonin and decrease cortisol. So, we're like manipulating biochemicals and it's a very natural way of making you feel drowsy. What time do you do that at? Uh we would do that immediately following every rigorous training session to kind of like negate inflammatory responses and things like that. You know, get you back in that anabolic phase as quickly as possible and then ideally right

72:56before bed every single night. Did you feel like a science project while all this was going on? I did. I did. Actually, I did a a presentation on me in in Russia with Roman with the with the scientist that they have at the USAPL. Like they tracked everything according to the Omega wave, the device that we were using and he was able to kind of show it. He was like, "Hey, look. My system my you know, this system does work. You know, it's just like people were kind of just tripping out. So, I was I went out there, did the whole presentation with in Moscow. And uh everybody was just kind of just like there everybody was kind of like, "Wow, amazing." Some of them were kind of scratching their head and some of them were like, "Damn, that's that that's cool. You're able to kind of see how I peaked for this fight and how I was able to kind of survive five rounds."

73:39The Russians have really been pioneering this type of training for quite a while. Specifically the the type of training like that Pavel Tsatsouline uses like where you you're using way less energy. You're working out way less, but you're getting better results from it. Like there's there's a lot of thought processes that have have been leaning in this direction from like a lot of really high-level top coaches for quite a while now. Yeah, I know and and it's cool to see it cuz I come from a traditional sport where you put your head down and you go. That's how wrestling is. Wrestling and Muay Thai I think they're very very alike in that sense. Like they're very traditional. Like the harder you go, the more you push through injury, the you know, the better you will become. Yeah, I also think that there's something to be said for that though in terms of mental strength cuz one of the

74:27things that wrestlers have that is it's not just that they have a great skill in being able to manipulate bodies, but they also have mental toughness that's at a level that I don't think you get from any other sport. I mean, I think there's a lot of pro athletes, even tennis players that are just mentally tough. They're just tough. So, people just know how to win. They know how to push themselves. But I feel like wrestlers are on another level cuz they're always tired, they're always overtrained, they're always dehydrated, and they're always working out with a bunch of savages that are all the same way, and everybody takes pleasure in being miserable. Like there's something to that. That like you see it. Man, I've seen thousands of fights. You see there's something about wrestlers. They have just like a extra gear. Like a high-level wrestler in particular has an

75:14extra gear that a lot of other fighters just never develop. Yeah, it's it's almost like I tell people wrestling's not it's almost like not a sport, man. It's like a culture, man. Yes. It's like this you're just you're in the culture of wrestling. And once you have that, it's almost a there's an honor to it. There's a warrior to it. Like and it's a Yeah. It's it's it it I was just at the World Championships, Joe, and I can tell you man, the best athletes in the world. I was just in Budapest, Hungary, and I saw Kyle Snyder and all these guys compete. And I'm just like, man, these are the most These are the best athletes in the world. This is the hardest a human being could ever do. Yeah. If you're to see the finesse and the strength and the power and what's involved in in becoming a world champion and watching these guys go through this freaking tough just a

76:00tough the toughest tournament in the world and it's uh I think I think what we do in MMA is fun compared to uh compared to wrestling. I really do. I I believe you. stuff is like, man, that stuff is hard what these guys go through to win a tournament. Like it's the weight cuts, the uh you know, they they don't get paid a lot of money. Right. Like these dudes are literally out for the glory. Yeah, all of each and every one of them. It's all glory. There's no financial reward at all. That's what's fascinating about it. But it's it's just interesting to me that I think you kind of need both in some weird way. Your mind needs to develop this this layer of toughness that wrestlers have. And then I think once you've developed that, then maybe I think your approach Kevin, is is is like applicable. But I think that until an athlete has that indomitable spirit,

76:54until they have that sort of that iron will that a wrestler possesses, it's there's to make a champion, I think you need many many things. But I I don't think you can ever discount that ability to work through discomfort the way wrestlers have. I just don't think it's wise as a professional athlete at a championship level to compete compromised. Oh, agreed. Yeah, you you know, there there's the intangibles, the stuff that you just can't teach. You can't quantify, you know. So, we do our best to to quantify as much as we can, but yeah, I mean, I completely agree. There's you got to put in the the time and the work to learn the skill at some point and then once you know, it it's autonomic, the skill's mastered, that's when you can kind of kick it back into our method. I'm going to I'm going to agree with you, Joe. I think I'm going to agree with you. And and I think the

77:36reason why this works for pretty much every MMA fighters because we've all been through hell. Yeah. Like in order for you to see and and believe in science, you have to go through hell to understand like, "Hey man, the hard way probably isn't the best way." But when you were talking about your your the feeling that you had in not wanting to ever feel the pain of losing again, that feeling that you had when your ankle was going out and that like, "Fuck this. No, no, no. I'm not doing this. I'm I'm going to find a way out of this." Like you almost have to experience lows in order to have that. And I I feel like that one of the things about wrestling that makes it a sport that creates so many savages is because you go through so much so much hardship, so so much difficulty that, you know, if you had science-based wrestling programs the way you're doing your science-based camp and

78:33you went in and you know, I "Everybody you got to slow down. Slow down, you know, like you you're you're going too hard. Slow down. You can't run up hills today. You know, your your your DC brain waves are all Your wrestling coach would be like, 'Shut the up and sit down. Who is this asshole?'" You know, like if Dan Gable brought you in a camp and you guys are running around doing all this stuff, he'd be like, "What? Like what are you saying? Like this is how we make champions." Yeah. Yeah, but like I said, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it's for to me the way I would see it is like you have to kind of go through hell in order to understand it because you have to go through that callus, through that burn. But I But I feel like especially in MMA, a lot of athletes or even athletes just in general, they everybody busts their butts almost. If you're an

79:15elite athlete, like you'll you'll always train maybe not the smartest way. Yeah. You know, like it's uh Yeah. I I I guess you could add more to to your training or or or or or or take away less. But there's a But there's a fine line to it. Yeah, the fine line is what's fascinating to me. Yeah. Uh like I One of the things that I love about MMA is that it's so broad. There are so many skills that the approach to success is different with every individual and you have to find what that approach is. Like the approach to you for your for you for you to achieve success is going to be different than the approach for a different athlete. It doesn't doesn't have the same skills that you have. But like Anderson Silva, perfect example. He's not a wrestler. He's going to have a different different approach. There's There's going to be different things that they work on in training. There's

80:05going to be a different mindset. It's going to be a different way of preparing. Right. Right. And And it's all according to everybody according like that. It's I think a lot of things are cookie cutter. Like looking at it the way down, it's like a lot of things have have stayed even in wrestling. Like just over tradition. You know, like bridging like every time I see people bridging the way they stretch and that kind of stuff. Like that ain't good for us, man. That so bad for your neck. they be doing like these like springs on their head. I'm just like, "Guys, damn." Kevin, how bad is that? How bad is bridging for you? Uh I mean, I I wouldn't recommend it. I mean, uh it But, Mike Tyson always looked badass and he was doing it back in the day. say, it looks pretty badass. So, I mean, teach your own, but Have you ever around with the iron neck? With the iron neck? know about that?

80:48Oh, I got one back there. Those things are badass, though. You got to try this, man. I saw some of your videos. That's definitely one of the missing links why a lot of these wrestlers get hurt there. You know, neck instability, the you know, postural issues that come associated with it as well. These guys need to strengthen their necks. It's a halo. You put it on, you pump it up like a Reebok pump. Remember the Reebok pumps? Yeah, yeah, the shoes. Yeah. You pump this sucker up, so it tightens up on your head. You put a chin strap on. It's got a a bungee cable on that's set to 50 lb. You back up, and then there's resistance on the halo, so it spins. The resist The halo has like You can tighten up or clamp down or loosen up the resistance. And you do these exercises like You go sideways. You do like like like loops back and forth. It's It's badass. Damn, that's that's crazy. I'm I'm

81:33excited, man. I hope you I got to Yeah, you got to try why I signed that waiver? Is that a No, you signed the waiver because you're going to get a hold of some of that weed. I don't want you running through walls. All right. Now, the And then the float tank. If you want to try the float tank, that's what the waiver's for, too. I don't want you to lose your mind. Yeah, the sensory immersion that those float tanks are pretty badass. We study those quite a bit for the nervous system based stuff. We're We're building kind of our own sensory immersion, like mindfulness room of the future as well. Like all the walls LED screens, so you can put yourself fully immersed in any environment. And you know, it's going to be pretty badass. Mindfulness is is so overlooked in these sports, how how important. And I know you're you're a meditation guy as well. It's, you know,

82:13get getting your mind right is is, you know, invaluable. Yeah, and you were saying that meditation and yoga is also a part of the preparation that you guys employ? Oh, 100%. Yeah. I mean, it all comes down to, you know, when we're doing our our warm-up, training, and recovery, it's all mind and body. So, his warm-up is going to include like somatosensory reaction testing. So, imagine like a a wall and it has different lights on it. You react as quickly as you can as soon as they light up. Then I say, "All right, if the light comes up red, use your right hand, and blue, use your left hand." So, we're invoking cognitive decision-making processes. Then we need to have you stand on one of these shake plates, a proprioceptive plate. Now, your vision, your neuromuscular, your proprioceptive, everything is warmed up. Everything every part of your brain that's going to

82:53equate to, you know, force output, absorption, and so on. Then we go do a more traditional warm-up, whatever that may be. We do a cognitive training, we do physical training more from a functional aspect. And then as soon as you're done, we get you into a mind-based recovery as well. So, we get you into yoga, meditation, that, you know, technology we're playing with right now that manipulates your biochemicals, um you know, just just about everything, man. It's a mind and body every step along the way. And when you're doing yoga, are you doing yoga to increase mobility? Are you doing it for the mental training? For both? Like Um I I definitely a little bit of both. We we believe Andre Moore leads the the yoga, what what we're doing over there. So, he'd be better to ask specifically. But we believe it largely for nervous system and for breathing. Uh one thing we

83:35really talk about is the diaphragmatic breathing, and yoga is really a calm environment to be able to focus on your breathing. What does that mean, diaphragmatic breathing? Diaphragmatic breathing, yeah. Breathing from your diaphragm. This is how we're all born breathing from our diaphragm, and just, you know, eventually we end up breathing from our chest, which is very ineffective, um for metabolic efficiency in general. Like explain like what is it? Just like when you see like, you know, the Wim Hof guy, he's always breathing from his gut here, and that's like engaging your core as opposed to just like your chest. So, you're actually getting deeper breaths, you're encouraging like core stability and things as well. It's better for metabolic efficiency, so when you're actually exercising, it's better for delaying anaerobic threshold, buffering lactate, things like that, as well as

84:14keeping the nervous system calm as well. Do you think there's any benefit to breathing through your nose and out through your mouth, or is that Um I I yeah, say it's an an individualized basis. I think if if the best thing is to not think about your breathing. When you start thinking about it, it can kind of get up. So, if we encourage diaphragmatic breathing without this this technology we utilize is actually even though when you're utilizing the technology, you're just breathing in in and out through your mouth, actually encourages in through the nose out through the mouth when you're training. So, I I mean I'm I'm not an expert specifically on that, but it sound yeah, I I think there's definitely some performance advantage to it. I I want to talk MMA now, Joe. Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate you. And this guy will uh this guy Go on all day, yeah. Love it,

84:52Kevin. Thank you so much, man. That was that was amazing. Really. Yeah, of course. And tell people where they could find out about your company and where where your website is. Uh our company is in Scottsdale, Arizona. The website is NeuroForceOne o n e dot com. Check us out. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Joe. That was very informative. It's intense son. Henry's now become the standard because uh like he said that uh Roman from the Performance Institute data did that PowerPoint presentation for UFC Moscow, he told us he's the first athlete that ever did eight weeks that they have eight weeks collection of data. So, Henry's now become the standard of the system that uh Roman had NeuroForceOne and all the data put together. It's the first time ever that an athlete actually stuck to the program for eight weeks. That's fantastic. So, for you now, you got the title and there is talk about

85:43you fighting for the bantamweight title against champion TJ Dillashaw. What are your thoughts? Like where where you at right now? Like what are your I'm nervous. goals? It's it's a beautiful time to be uh to be the champ. There's uh there's there's tons of tons of options, Joe, you know. Where's your contract at right now? Well, uh I have I still have about seven fights left, you know, but I'm I'm going to we're going to renegotiate cuz I think I think more likely that TJ fight might might happen. Got to happen. That TJ fight might happen if you know if they if it's going to be a done deal with uh with the flyweight division. Mhm. You know, I think I think the cat's out the bag and you know, they didn't had had mentioned that to me. He said, "Hey, you know, we we're going to we want to take you up on that offer of you challenging to go up against TJ, but this is what this is

86:28what the company's been thinking about for a while. Mhm. And TJ's down for it, too? I I don't think so. I think TJ wants to come down to 25 and I think I think that's kind of like the like the delay a little bit. Yeah. now. Would you rather fight him at 35 so you can get an additional title, or would you rather him at 35 because you don't have to cut weight, or what's your thought process? I I like both ideas. I actually kind of left it off to him. I says, "I don't know, but I want to fight you, man." I said, "I want to fight TJ. I I want to I want to go out to the next best thing, and that's I think that's him, you know." I think don't mind fighting him at 25 or 35. don't. That makes it easier. Yeah. That's that definitely makes it easier. just like, "Hey, let's let's do it at 25, let's do it at 35, but let's let's fight, man." That's where your your mind is right

87:10now. That's your number one goal. Yeah. Yeah. I I believe TJ wants to fight me, too. I think uh I think, you know, beating Demetrious, I think that kind of that's going to help his name. You know, you know, it's going to for I guess for both, you can say, you know. So But now that Demetrious has left the division and gone off to One FC to get Where where do you think the division is right now? I mean I um Is that one reason like if you won at 35 and won the title at 35, would you consider dropping the 25 lb title and competing at 35, or would you rather stay at 25? Uh I would I wouldn't mind I wouldn't mind dabbling in both. I mean, I know that's that's kind of that's kind of broad, but you know, at one point you do get tired of cutting weight. Mhm. And I'm kind of What do you weigh right now? I'm I'm probably about probably about 50. 50. Yeah, one I mean, losing 15 lb is

88:06way better than losing 25 lb. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm a little I'm I'm a little bigger now because of because of that reason I might I might have to fight at at bantam. Some kind of I think more likely it might happen at bantamweight. What What people don't know is that actually Henry almost fought TJ when he was the champ. When Henry Briones didn't make weight his first fight in the UFC, he didn't make weight but 2 hours later Henry Briones didn't make make weight and they were looking for somebody to go up and fight TJ. Soto fought him? When Joe Soto fought him, Henry was the number one option. But Henry had already declined. He said he wasn't fighting Jorgensen. But now here we are 3 years later back now he's got the tent he's got the belt. TJ came back and won the belt. Let's do it. These guys been beefing for for a long time. So that's ever since

89:01the first day he ever came into the UFC him and TJ have been at it. And then on The Ultimate Fighter Ultimate Fighter 24 they had Duane Bang was the coach. There was like a little beef with Henry and and Benavidez's team Benavidez's coach. So it kind of goes way back. There was there was a bit of animosity too on top of everything. Now you're a very goal-oriented guy. Do you Do you have your career mapped out in terms of like when you would like to get out of the game? I do I do not think about it a lot cuz man I I'll be honest with you Joe. I've I've accomplished everything that I've ever wanted to you know in in my career. Like I've always I had I had three goals and I was just you know my number one goal was just to be a good person, a good father someday, a good husband. And then after that was to be an Olympic champ and then and then and then eventually UFC champ. So everything's

89:53kind of uh I I've done everything in that I've ever kind of set my mind to. You know, those are the two biggest thing the two manliest thing anybody could ever do. And uh I I don't see myself fighting for more than for more than maybe three to four years. The only other thing you really are in this rare space where you have the possibility of being considered one of the greatest combat sport athletes of all time. I mean, you're already in the mix, right? Olympic gold medalist, UFC champion. I mean, you you have this very rare opportunity for incredible greatness. Yeah. I think for the most part, I mean, I like to eventually I mean, I I do a lot of motivational speaking. I've been doing that for a while, Joe. I've spoken in front of like the biggest the biggest companies in the world. I mean, the Coca-Cola, like the TD Ameritrade, uh Procter & Gamble, you know,

90:47billion-dollar company. I just got signed by Kroger. Um and they kind of you know, they use me for for for that reason. And I really enjoy doing that. And then and plus you get paid. And you don't have to get leg kicked. Yeah. Yeah, you don't have to get leg kicked and hit that nerve and do the drunken monkey. Yeah, you don't got to do all that. And and it's just cool. It's just cool to kind of share the the you know, the whole underdog story. I love that people do do that, that companies have the the the mindset of bringing in champions and people that are extraordinary at whatever they do and speaking to these you know, these people that work for them and explaining like what the I mean, that motivation is gigantic. Motivation is such a huge source of fuel for people in all walks of life. Mhm. You know, to have a guy like you come in and talk to a company

91:36could have a really big impact on their creativity, on on how they pursue goals, on all all kinds of different things. Yeah, so that that's So, anyways, that's kind of where I kind of I can see my life kind of heading to. Now, I you know, eventually I don't think I can I don't think I I I think I'll always be a fan of the sport, but I don't think I'll be involved in in either wrestling or fighting as much as I think I would. Not as a coach, not as No. No, it's too hard, Joe. Like look at all these these coaches it's it's a a relationship. Yeah. You know, being a coach is you're you're in a relationship with with your athletes. Sometimes you go through these breakups and sometimes the athletes don't give you what they want to give you and then it's just it's a headache at times. And I see that with I see that with a lot of you know, I see that with him and I'm just like, man, I don't know

92:20if I want to go through that stress level. It's a lot of stress. Well, Eric, for a guy like you, you can you get across a guy like Henry, you hit the goldmine. But you can get across a guy who is a really talented guy that's a flake. And those to to me personally There's plenty of those. But to me as an analyst, as someone who watches fights, they're the most frustrating. Cuz there's some guys that I see and I go, god damn, that motherfucker's good. He's got the potential. Like they can do things inside the octagon. They do things Like I'll see guys in the gym. Like I'll go to a gym and watch guys train and see the guy and I go, if this could put it together like this in the cage, the way you see when he's sparring, like some people are just artists. But the anxiety of competition and and all the factors that come involved, the discipline, the consistency, all the things that make

93:13someone a great fighter sometimes, there's so much so many different things that make someone a great fighter that wind up them up when when they they actually go to compete. Though the recklessness, the impulsiveness that actually makes them good also can wind up tanking them if they don't sort of forge it with with with some sort of like severe discipline. Yeah, there there has to be a training of the mind too. And and I think that's where people are skipping. And you know, I think that's that's where you have to understand like the philosophy of pure like you have to you have to be right up top. You have to be right. You have to you have to be literally you have to understand and know who you are as a fighter, as a person. Mhm. And uh you know, to kind of to be stable enough to perform at when it really matters. Yeah. And if if you don't have that, you can

94:06be as talented and and and as gifted as you want, you'll you'll never make it. Yeah. And we see those all the time. Like I see guys in practice, man, they would tear me up. They came to competition, they would just roll roll over like fish. It's weird, right? Yeah, it's crazy. I'm like, "Huh?" Yeah, it's weird as you're coming you see those guys and you you realize like, "Man, there's there's something missing." And then you you you you're terrified you're going to see that in yourself. And I think it's the embracement of embracing pressure. Mhm. It's something that you don't neglect. It's something that you don't shy away from. It's something that you don't allow damage to damage you. But it's an embracement. It's a It's just like, "Hey, bring it, man. Bring it." Cuz that's what it is, Joe. It's the pressure that people feel. The reason why they can't perform. It's what makes

94:51champions. I remember when T.J. Dillashaw first fought Renan Barão. Um when he got into that octagon, dude, he looked like he was sparring. He was loose as a goose. And and I and I saw him, I'm like, "Damn, look how loose T.J. is." Like this is a world title fight and he's switching stances and giving him looks and he looks fantastic. He just looked loose and then boom! He hits him with that big overhand right and next thing you know, Renan Barão's getting up. Yeah. I mean, and that was what T.J. thrives on that kind of pressure. He lives for that kind of pressure just like you do. Which is why I want to see that fight. Let's do it. I want his head on a I want his head I want his head on a spike. That's what I want. I want I want to make I want to make some snake shoes out of out of T.J., man. Snake skin, baby. skin shoes. Maybe suit. He might be big

95:41enough for me. Yeah. What what a what a fight that would be for fans, too. I mean, it's those champion versus champion encounters are always so fantastic. No, and the reason why it's cool, too, is because we're both in our prime, too. Like TJ's probably a couple years older than me, but even with like Demetrious, like dude, I'd beat Demetrious in his prime. Like yeah, it was a close fight. But man, I I can say, dude, I I beat him in his prime. In his prime. And it's almost like there's no doubt, but it was it was because of the game planning. And you ended the greatest winning streak in the history of the sport. Right. You know what I mean? The greatest championship defense streak in the history of the sport. And then on top I mean Nurmagomedov has the greatest winning streak in the sport because he's you know he's still undefeated, but as far as defending the title, DJ was number

96:23one. And again, you did it to him in his prime. If you look at the way he destroyed Wilson Hayes, if you look at like I mean Everybody, everybody, man. Everybody. Just He's a monster, man. the greatest submission in That was the craziest of all time. We suplexes him and then catches an armbar on the way down. Get the out of here. He told me he does that in training all the time. Oh I believe me and Matt Hume is a wizard One of the things that I did that was kind of unconventional unconventional for this camp, I had them video edit. We Obviously, we scouted Demetrious Johnson, but then I went back and got every one minute clip of Matt Hume's interval between rounds. So, 25 fights, I have the one minute what he tells him and how he adapts and changes. And one of the things I noticed is that he always went to wrestling. And he when he always went to wrestling, he sounded

97:20like it was automatic. All right, so this round we're going to take him down and we're going to work It was always automatic. And when it went into the fifth round, it wasn't automatic. You could hear him say You could try to take him down if you want. It was kind of like that the way he said it. And when I went back and watched him, I was like, we got him. And going into that fifth round one of the things that we talked about subliminally and mentally training was when we went Henry was just put in the Hall of Fame. You know, he which is never been done at such a young age. wrestler. As a wrestler. Yeah, wrestling Hall of And when I was at the wrestling Hall of Fame, Nate Carr, who's also one of the greatest wrestlers ever, he told me, he said, "You know what, Eric? When I wrestled Kenny Monday and I lost him in the Big Tens, I knew that when I went out 2 weeks

98:08later to fight him in the NCAA finals, that it might come up that that that man this guy just beat me. And he goes, "So I had a book." Actually, I think he said his wife made his book. Uh and he put all the positive things that that uh Nate Carr had done and all the articles and she made quotes from that and put it in this book. So he gave me that idea and then I did that. So when Henry was put in the Hall of Fame, that night they had a video highlights. They had Terry Brands as coach, they had uh Sergey Beloglazov, Kenny Kevin Jackson, some of the greatest all his coaches saying stuff about him and I took that and I put it in this book and it kind of like and I read it to him every day and it kind of like uh happened in the fight. One of his own quotes was that, "I've got to go in there and kill and be ready to die." And and you know, when he got that leg injury, you know, he was ready

99:01to die. He was ready to keep going forward. Yes, we adapted and and went southpaw, but uh some of that stuff in the book came exactly true. Start fast and and finish even stronger. Compete with passion and and uh and purpose. And this is what I said to him right here. He's He's been waiting all day to show you this Cuz this is what I told him going into the fifth round uh when we was four two to two. Let's see Let's see Let's hear it. let me see. It says, "Let's throw Henry. Burn the ships, take the castle. Let's take him down. Hurt him on the ground. If he gets back up, knock his ass out." And that's what I told him going into the fifth round to shake him. shirt? We I think we only had one or two, but we should send the messenger. So, uh you know, it's just uh something that I was ingraining into him every uh every sparring session I had something said for him.

99:56But this time going into the fifth round against DJ, I wasn't sure if it was two to two or if he needed a knockdown. feel? I thought it was two to two. I thought it was two to two, and I think I think I think DJ from the interviews that I've heard, I think he felt like it was two-two going to the fifth. Yeah, we thought it was two-two. When we were watching the fight, we're like, "Damn, this is as close as it gets." Yeah, and yeah, and again, Joe, I wouldn't I wouldn't like I could say that I could I cuz it was such a close fight, dude. I I I I I'd clap for Demetrious, too, if they would have gave them the the fight. Like I I I know it was close, you know. Um what did you weigh? I was actually I was actually a pound lighter than uh than Demetrious. I don't know if you knew that, yeah. You looked bigger. Yeah. You really did. That's again, that's that's kind of

100:42that's kind of where they the way they placed like my muscle. Like it was uh That's why I looked bigger, but no, I was a pound lighter than Demetrious Johnson. I weighed like that, 141. Oh, wow. It's cuz when you you saw you guys standing together in the octagon, you really did look bigger than him. It's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm not I was I was lighter than Demetrious, people, FYI. And he kept on saying he said it twice, he's so big, he's so strong. He said it twice in his post-interview. Well, that's wrestling strength, right? Wrestling strength is just a different kind of strength. Well, it's sometimes it's it's it's not even strength, it's leverage. It's learning how to use how to how to tippy-toe things and how to use your weight to to pressure opponent or to take them down. For sure, yeah, but there's also strength. I mean, there's some creepy strength that wrestlers

101:30have. Anybody's ever rolled with a wrestler knows that. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. could see the transformation that he had from the eight weeks from the beginning to the end. There's a documentary. These guys filmed the whole entire thing. Are you guys going to put it out? You putting the documentary out? Yeah, we're going to put Yeah, I think we're going to put it out sometime in the I think in the spring, but it's going to come out and it'll be It's going to be nice. I think we're going to try to pitch it to uh to Netflix. Nice. Yeah, that'd be huge. God the messenger. Yeah. The messenger. And don't forget uh not only was he fighting for the title, this guy was fighting for his life only eight months before in the Santa Rosa fires. So his story is very inspirational. That's a crazy story in and of itself. You actually burned the bottom of your feet running escaping a fire

102:13that snuck up on you like lightning speed, huh? Yeah, it was it was a it was the craziest thing that's probably ever happened to me. And I've been I've done some crazy things. Yeah, they documented it in the UFC pre-show. Like when they they showed like all the damage to the area where you were living. It's terrifying. Yeah, it was crazy. I Anyways, I mean, I guess I guess I guess this is where people kind of share their stories, right? Sure. But it's uh Yeah, so this was about a year ago now. So this was Yeah, about a year ago now. And I I got invited to this event with uh you know, raising raising raising money for kids and cancer. And everybody in there every every big celebrity gets invited like Jerry Rice, like Barry Bonds, like the like the the big A-list celebrities and everybody was there. And then we had a fundraiser that night and you know, wine country in Santa

103:00Rosa, California. You know, and everybody know everybody had their drinks or whatnot. You know, I had I had a couple glasses. Maybe had a few glasses of wine, but I don't I don't drink wine. But I had a few glasses and I remember I told everybody, "Hey, I'm going to sleep, guys." And it was close to about midnight. I was like, "I ain't trying to stay up with these people. And I'm trying I'm trying to sleep cuz I was I never drink wine." So I go to my room and and then I I shower, get into bed and and I remember right before I went to bed I remember I I saw like the flickering of lights. And I just I I thought it was weird. This is roughly about the time I got to my hotel I showered I saw the flickering of lights, I didn't think anything of it. And I pass out 2:30 hits, 2:30 in the morning hits, and I'm just uh I'm just, you know, I I wake up because

103:43I hear the alarm, you know, kind of pop off at the at the hotel. So now I'm hearing these alarms starting to go off, and I've you know, I checked out I checked out in front I checked out through the window, and I checked out at the lobby, nobody was moving, so I was like, "It's a false alarm." So I got the pillow, put it over my head, and I freaking slept through the alarm. And that happened about 2:30. Now 4:30 comes about, and this time I don't wake up I don't wake up because of the alarm, I wake up because of the smoke. I'm like coughing on my I'm like coughing on the smoke, and at first I thought I was dreaming. So I wake up, and I at that time I had I had you know, I slept in my towel, that's how tired I was. And I got up, and I'm going to turn on the lights, and the lights ain't turning on. And then I go through the window, and I check the window, and next you know

104:24what, I see the car right in front of me on fire. Uh 3/4 of the hotel's, like I was probably about five rooms away from like getting hit hard, like I'm talking about like like fire coming out the window. Like that, and I'm waking up to this. Like thinking I'm dreaming, you know, in a towel. And the lights everything was dark, but I could see everything like it like the room started getting hot. And I couldn't I couldn't hold my breath no more. I started looking for my my shoes, I couldn't find my shoes, and I I bumped into my slacks that I left them on the ironing board the the night before, and I put them on, and I I grabbed I grabbed the I grabbed my phone, and I jumped out the window. I jumped out the window. As I jumped out the window, my right foot catches on fire. My right foot catches on fire fast, and I'm looking to kind of I'm I'm I'm I'm kind of you know, trying to put it out.

105:10And it's crazy how people I can see how people could catch on fire real quick. Cuz my my right leg was like boom, like it was it was crazy. Wow. So I jump out, and I start walking. As as I'm walking, I'm seeing like this the hotel in front of us was all in sticks, dude. Like the whole thing was just in sticks. Like the the fire had just ate that thing up. There's a building in front of me on on fire. Like I'm just walking through the streets going up the hill. I'm just thinking like, God, it'd be a horrible way to die. Horrible way to die. And I got a I got a bird's-eye view when I was on top of the uh when I was on top of the hill. And then I saw there's a cop down there. There's a cop down uh in the middle of the freeway. Just like, you know, that's that's where I got to go. So, now I'm running fast and I'm seeing all this brush fire kind of come along

105:54and just I'm seeing like California like just catch on fire like completely like through my eyes. I jump over the first fence to get to the freeway, you know, no problem. I jump over the second fence. And then the third fence, it was a it was a very like a flimsy uh kind of fence. And I remember as I as as I jumped out, I remember it snagged like part of my slacks. I keep in mind I was I I had the only thing I had on was slacks. I like I was commando, slacks, no shirt, no shoes, like out in the cold in California. And as that that flimsy fence as I as I jumped off that last fence, it like cut it like a part of the fence like grabbed my butt and it just it it cut me open hard. And it tore like half the leg. So, now I'm full of I'm I'm full of smoke. And my right foot's burned and uh I'm I'm pretty much half naked in the middle of the freeway. Jesus Christ. So, I see the cop car and

106:49I go up to the cop car and as I'm going up to it, I'm sorry, the freaking cop car leaves. Oh. Like like it just scrambles. I'm just like, oh my god. And as soon as that cop car left, uh I remember seeing like this big-ass diesel like coming towards me. And I remember getting into the middle of the freeway and kind of you know, waving my hands like do you you you going to take me? I ain't dying like this. Like hit me, dude. And uh as it got closer, I saw it was a fire truck. And I and I get rescued I get rescued by the firemen. They put me in the fire truck and they're just kind of like looking at him he's like, "Damn, dude. You just You just survived death. You Damn. You just survived death cuz I was black, dude. I I already smell like a marshmallow. Did anybody die in the hotel? 50. 50 people died in uh in the Sorry, in the hotel I'm not sure if anybody died at the

107:37hotel. I hope not, but I could see how 50 people died in the Well, it was it was a worse No, yeah, 50 people died. 50 families. Like it was it was it was sad to hear, man. So, it just happened quick. The those fires come so quick, people don't realize it's before it's too late and then there's no escape route. And and I think the reason why cuz I think people had time to get out. I think the reason why 50 people died is because they didn't take the the alarm like me serious. And next you know it was too late because that that smoke will blind you. So, you think you're going to into the right direction and next you know you're walking into the the biggest fire in history. Jesus Christ. So, so that had happened like 2 months before I fought Sergio Pettis. And I and I and I still fought him. Like I trained with two socks just with with the with the wrestling shoe.

108:22And I just stuck it out because I pulled out the first fight with him. I says I got to make it up to you. And I told him I says, "Hey, I I said I owe you one." And then he kind of called me out on it. I was like, "Ah, dude, I'm going to fight you regardless now, man." With with with uh with uh first-degree burns on my foot or I'm sorry third-degree burns on my foot. Wow. Well, I'm glad you made it, man. Yeah, and here I am 2018 uh UFC champ. I'm glad you made it and I'm glad we could do this podcast. Thanks for doing this, man. I really appreciate it. Yeah, no, for sure. Thank Thank you, Joe. I've been a been a big fan of your show and uh hope you guys got some good insight on the messenger and Captain America over there. We certainly did. We definitely did. And and Kevin as well. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you, Eric. Thank you. Bye, everybody.